Terrifying Looking T-Rex Ant Found Alive For The First Time Ever

Looks can be deceiving.

They look absolutely terrifying and have the super bad-ass name to match.

What is surprising about these little creatures however, is their shy personality and harmless nature.

Meet the Tyrannomyrmex rex ant or as it is less formally known, the T-Rex.The insect was named after the dinosaur of the same name, as both animals possess cannibalistic tendencies. That's right, this ant, in desperate times, will turn to cannibalism to get by.

That however, seems to be the only thing remotely scary about the creature. Gizmodo reports that the T-Rexs are timid crawlers and self-cleaning so they don't spread disease to others in their colony. They are also said to be nocturnal and incredibly picky eaters, so yes, the ants couldn't be more opposite of the T-Rex dinosaur.

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'The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.

The T-Rex ant was originally discovered in Malaysia in 1994 and are part of the Tyrannomyrmex genus species, where there are only two other identified types. The latest discovery was made by Mark Wong and Gordon Yong from the National University in Singapore. Until now, no one had collected a specimen of the ant or seen one alive for an extended period of time.

Mr Wong said to Gizmodo, "Tyrannomyrmex would actually translate into "tyrant ant", but it soon became clear these ants aren't in any way tyrants, in fact quite the opposite if you look at how they "freeze up" when other organisms come close, and quickly run away after.

Now that such a discovery has been made, scientists' previous ideas about the insect have been disproved, where these creatures are probably more common than previously thought.